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University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Department of Informatics

Project Proposal Seminar Thesis

Developing Communities for B2B Companies through Social Media

Research Paper Analysis

STUDENTS NAMES: Claudia Mihaela Balan; Maria Iuliana Maxim

STUDENTS NUMBERS: 12-212-403; 13-200-407

COURSE NAME: Electronic Business

DEPARTMENT: Department of Informatics

EXAMINER: Prof. Dr. Andreas Meier

SUPERVISOR: Luis Téran

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 1.05.2014

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Table of Contents

1. Background and Motivation of the Thesis .....................................................................................................3

1.1 Overview ........................................................................................................................................................................ 3

1.2 Problem Statement ....................................................................................................................................................... 3

1.3 Research Questions ..................................................................................................................................................... 4

1.4 Addressee ....................................................................................................................................................................... 4

1.5 Timetable........................................................................................................................................................................ 4

2. B2B Community ............................................................................................................................................5

2.1. Defining B2B Social Media Community ................................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Challenges in the adoption of Social Media .............................................................................................................. 5

2.3 Web 2.0 and Social Media ............................................................................................................................................... 6

2.4. Developing Communities and Main Challenges ..................................................................................................... 7

3. Developing the Social Media Strategy ...........................................................................................................8

3.1. Steps needed to develop a strategy .............................................................................................................................. 9

3.2. Defining the Main Objectives..................................................................................................................................... 11

3.3. Choosing between Open or Closed Community .................................................................................................. 11

3.3.1. Defining the open and closed communities ........................................................................................................ 11

3.3.2. Advantages and disadvantages of open and closed communities ............................................................... 11

3.4. Evaluating and measuring social media benefits .................................................................................................. 12

4. Comparing Social Media Strategies at BASF Company and DuPont Company. Case Study ................... 13

4.1. BASF COMPANY......................................................................................................................................................... 14 4.1.1. Company presentation .................................................................................................................... 14

4.1.2 BASF & Social Media ..................................................................................................................... 15

4.2. DuPont ............................................................................................................................................................................... 22

4.2.1 Company presentation ................................................................................................................................................ 22

4.3 Comparison DuPont vs. BASF .................................................................................................................................... 27

5. Recommendations ...................................................................................................................................... 28

6. Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................ 30

7. Literature..................................................................................................................................................... 31

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1. Background and Motivation of the Thesis

1.1 Overview

Social media is a phenomenon that has transformed the interaction and communication of

individuals throughout the world. However, social media is not a new concept - it has been

evolving since the dawn of human interaction.

In recent times, social media has impacted many aspects of human communication, thereby

impacting business. Social networking has become daily practice in some users’ lives.

The adoption and attitudes towards social media in the business context seem to be affected by the

above phenomena: in practice, managers often seem to associate social media strongly to

Facebook and Twitter, which are only a very minor part of the social media genre in business.

The markets, the products and product development have significant differences between the

business-to-business and consumer product sectors. For instance, generally speaking products

produced by business-to business organizations are more complex, the development of new

products takes significantly more time, and the customers are large organizations instead of

single persons, which is the case in consumer (business-to-consumer) product sector.

In order to explain these differences between the profile of a B2B company and a company

aiming at end consumers, this paper proposes an analysis of Communities for B2B companies

through Social Media evolution as a result of important dynamics.

The aim of this thesis is to point how communities, businesses, companies and customers are

involved in this process. Moreover it is important to define strategies in perfect synchronization

with the goals and objectives of the company. By analyzing the Key Performance Indicators of

the social media outcomes, the strategies and tactics of a B2B company can be constantly

monitored and redefined accordingly. The paper will also analyze the main challenges and

opportunities involved throughout all the processes.

1.2 Problem Statement

It has been a relatively common assumption that it is much more difficult to utilize social media

in business-to-business field and customer interface for instance because of the many

significant differences in the business-to-business products, markets and product development.

Utilizing social media tools can lead to significant benefits for the company, but without a set of

concrete objectives and related measurable results, there is no certainty that social media

process is efficiently employed. Setting useful objectives for social media that are based on

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business goals, as well as flowingly evaluating and measuring the benefits helps organization

to keep on track on its position, communicate its position internally and externally, confirm

priorities and direct the progress of its activities.

1.3 Research Questions

Q1. How can we define B2B Communities?

Q2. How can B2B companies define strategies and goals to increase the efficiency of Social

Media?

Q3. In what way can we develop a B2B Community by using Social Media Tools?

Q4. What are the main issues in communicating through Social Media for B2B

companies? Q5. What are the business functions that can be enhanced by a Social Media

program?

Q6. What are the possible ways to measure the success of Social Media Communities?

1.4 Addressee

The main beneficial of our study would be not only the B2B Companies which would

like to implement Social Media Communities but also the companies which already have

one and wish to improve it.

1.5 Timetable

27.02.2014 Submission of Titles

03.03.2014 Titles Acceptance

07.03.2014 Submission of Proposal

March 2014 Literature search and evaluation

April 2014 Draft of the paper

Correction of the paper

1.05.2014 Report Submission

9.05.2014 Final Presentations

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2. B2B Community

2.1. Defining B2B Social Media Community

Despite the growing amount of company experimenting and academic studies, social media is still

new to many businesses. Its real opportunities and benefits are not well understood in many business

contexts, such as the B2B context. Despite the grown recent interest in the use of social media in

B2B marketing applications, the adoption of social media in B2B innovation is still low. In addition,

in B2B environment, currently the innovation perspective seems clearly lacking in academic

research and well-reported case studies, which would enable companies to better adopt social media.

Despite the relative novelty of social media in business and lack of academic research, social media

has already been demonstrated to open many new opportunities for the B2B sector due to its

features that can enhance communication, interaction and collaboration, which can bring significant

benefits to organizations.

For example, social media can be utilized to identify new business opportunities and new product

ideas, to support marketing activities, to deepen relationships with customers and to enhance

collaboration not only inside but also between companies and other parties.

2.2 Challenges in the adoption of Social Media

Concerning the challenges related to adoption, according to for instance a recent survey, lack of

understanding of the possibilities of social media in innovation, difficulties in assessing its financial

gains and lack of suitable case evidence are among the most important reasons for B2B- companies

not adopting social media in their innovation.

On the basis of current literature, it can be assumed that the challenges, benefits and useful

approaches of social media in B2B sector are somewhat different from those of B2C companies.

It has been a relatively common assumption that it is much more difficult to utilize social media in

business-to-business innovation and customer interface for instance because of the many significant

differences in the business-to-business products, markets and product development.

Utilizing social media tools can lead to significant benefits for the company, but without a set of

concrete objectives and related measurable results, there is no certainty that social media process is

efficiently employed.

Setting useful objectives for social media efforts that are based on business goals, as well as

following evaluating and measuring the benefits helps organization to keep on track on its position,

communicate its position internally and externally, confirm priorities and direct the progress of its

activities has spread in last few years, evaluating and measuring the benefits of social media

approaches has not been much investigated. Organizations are spending more and more on social

media applications, but there is no clear view or consensus on what should be strived for with social

media efforts and how to evaluate the benefits of social media. Also, social media is a large

umbrella term for various very different types of approaches with different purposes and benefits,

and the various approaches are often utilized in very different ways. This should also be taken into

consideration when evaluating and measuring the benefits, but a large part of existing benefit-

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exploring studies either discuss social media as a very broad concept, or discuss individual social

media case studies from a very narrow perspective. In this paper, we try to get a more

comprehensive picture of the benefits with making a review to existing B2B research on the benefits

of social media in the customer interface of the innovation process, while maintaining the more

concrete insights from individual cases.

2.3 Web 2.0 and Social Media

Although the concepts Web 2.0 and social media are often used synonymously, it is useful to

differentiate them from each other. The concept Web 2.0 can be defined as technologies that enable

users to communicate, create content and share it with each other via communities, social networks

and virtual worlds, making it easier than before.

Social media can be defined as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological

and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user

generated content”.

Furthering this, social media are often referred to as applications that are either fully based on user-

created content, or in which user-created content or user activity have a significant role in increasing

the value of the application or the service.

Social media are certainly not a unified and well-defined set of approaches, and despite some broad

common characteristics analyzed in more detail considering the specific social media types and the

context of use.

Not all social media are the same. From a technology perspective, the platforms vary and along with

that, so do the rules of utilization and functionality (Twitter tweets/posts can be no more than 140

characters). In turn, there is variation in how people use these platforms and/or associated

applications (bloggers tend to post at most once per day, and their posts tend to be up to one page in

length).

In contrast to passive viewing of web content only, a Web 2.0 site allows users to create content,

interact and collaborate in a user-generated virtual-type community.

The emergence of Web 2.0 has transformed not only the quality and content of social media but it

has allowed for greater connectively and interaction for social networking. The quality and quantity

of social media and social networking sites are becoming countless.

The first area to analyze is the use of blogs and blogging. The term is a combination of the words

“web” and “log” and involve the posting of commentary or news on a particular subject. Users can

either view the content passively or if allowed, can react to posts and contribute content. 1

Examples include the sites Blogger (blogger.com), Wordpress (wordpress.org), and Twitter

(twitter.com). The emergence of the Twitter service enables users to send and read other users'

messages of text-based posts made up of up to 140 characters called tweets. Users may subscribe or

“follow” other author tweets and this service is increasingly available and integrated in Smartphone

technology. Twitter has gained popularity rapidly and currently has more than 100 million users

worldwide. The use of wikis has become a popular option for individuals who would like to provide 2content on web pages that other users can edit. These sites are an excellent option for individuals

who wish to coordinate information, collaborate and share ideas on various social media content,

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and track changes that many individuals would like to have input on. Examples of wiki applications

include Wikispaces (wikispaces.com) and Google Docs (docs.google.com.

Social networking sites allow users to share ideas and user-generated content (including images and

video) while building connections and associations, both personal and professional. There are three

fundamental uses for social networking: (1) As a means of personal communication, (2) To link

groups, and (3) To promote an idea.

2.4. Developing Communities and Main Challenges

Social media involves the use of various technological tools and methods for sharing and discussing

information. Social media is a way to transmit or distribute information to a broad audience where

users have an opportunity to create and dis-tribute content. By comparison, social networking is the

use of these tools specifically to connect and interact with others. Social networking is the act of

engagement where groups of people with common interests are associated and build relationships

through a shared community of interest.

For example, the online website YouTube, the video-sharing portal where users can upload, share,

and view videos, is considered a social media site. In comparison, Facebook was created on the

premise of linking individuals and organizations into various networks of common interests or

associations.

There are many challenges and limitations that prevent or dissuade use of social media and

networking to its full potential.

First, the cost of some technologies, particularly mobile devices and their often expensive service

contracts can prove prohibitive for many users. While the costs of computing (processors, monitors,

etc.) have decreased in recent years, technologies that provide easy access to social media and

networking sites can be beyond the means of those in poverty or for those outside rural broadband

access.

Second, the skills required to be social network can be vast, particularly to those without much time

to invest in initial learning. There are necessary investments in terms of setting up accounts, learning

new software applications, and the consistence maintenance (reading and processing) mainly those

with little background in related types of technology.

Third, social media and social networking can actually exacerbated divisions of perspective and may

work counter to the collaborative goals of many community development efforts that promote

comprehensiveness and diversity.

Active citizen participation in the affairs of the future is described by Fischer (2000, p. 259) as the

“reason of democracy. Not only citizen participation give meaning to the term, but it plays an

important role in legitimating both policy formulation and implementation.”

For Putnam, (2000. p. 341) democracy in the form of face-to-face participation is essential since

“citizenship is not a spectator sport.” New, web based technologies may actually increase the

tension of citizenships to address many of the complicated and often value-based community

development issues of our times.

Last, with the availability of immeasurable amounts of information accessible through social

networking. Indeed, we have become lost in a sea of data. Web searches today can reveal an excess

of information that may overwhelm the most technologically competent community developers. A

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concerted effort to continually manage and organize information related to community development

will only serve to help experts navigate the chaos of social media related to the discipline. Yet, as

these many present and future challenges present themselves, there are also many opportunities and

success stories for organizing in the field of community development.

3. Developing the Social Media Strategy

A company wishing to develop a social media community needs to plan its strategy in order to achieve

the best results. Taking into account that it is not always easy to assess the return on investment in social

media, a well-developed strategy would mitigate the possible uncertainties and overspendings that might arise

along the process. Moreover, a strategic planned project would foresee any problems that could occur and

help tackling possible arising challenges. B2B companies approach the relationship with their customers

differently from the way that B2C companies do it and that is because of the different nature of the

relationship developed between the client and the firma.

Firstly when we refer to social media we refer to the volume of transactions that is implied in the normal

B2B relationship. The B2B relationships are primarily characterized by longevity. Both client and provider do

work together along the value chain in developing the product3. Working together in producing a certain

product may require a longer period of time.

Secondly we talk about the type and duration. A B2B relationship lasts longer and is usually based on trust

and mutual agreements. In B2B the nature of the relationship with your customer is reflected into the quality

of the final product sold to the end customer. Thirdly, a B2B customer will most likely be a returning

customer. Most B2B activities are repetitive ones and not one-time purchase like in most B2C selling

activities. Thus, meeting the clients’ expectations through high quality offerings delivered just-in-time is

likely to make a B2B customer to return, benefiting the company. Last, but not least, the companies could be

seen as partners rather than seller-buyer, so trust is a key word in B2B relationships. If seen from the point of

view of partnership, the relationship is also based on close ties between those involved in B2B transactions.

That being said good behavior from both sides of the transaction is a must to ensure reputation4.

Departing from above mentioned characteristics of the B2B relationships, the strategy must be developed, by

taking into account the following key aspects:

Trust

Time

Suppliers are scarce

Reputation to defend and enhance

Relatively restrictive market

Difficult to build network with trusting partners

Relatively close ties between

Partners in innovation (source needed)

That being said, defining the targets seems an appropriate starting point in the implementing of the plan

to develop social media. One main purpose should be the differentiation and positioning. In order to gain

competitive advantage a company should differentiate itself from the others. In general, differentiation is seen

as the key to success and the holder of that key usually has the access to best market segments and implicitly

to profitable customers. As Michael Porter said: “ A company can outperform its rivals only if it can establish

a difference that it can preserve. It must deliver greater value to customers or create comparable value at a

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lower cost, or both5.”

In most cases differentiation makes the consumers or the organizational consumers buy the product. All

the selling strategies vary and vary so that they can appeal to different market segments at different points in

time and for different purposes. If the strategies would not vary, consumers would have no reason to look

after special options or product features and would just analyze the price, but also in such cases they would

verify the price and thus, the price constitutes a differentiation.

From the point of view positioning the literature refers in general to two types of positioning: physical

positioning and perceptual positioning6.

Taking into account the above-mentioned pillars of a well-based strategy, we will present in the following

chapter the main steps that a company should consider in developing their strategy for social media in

business.

3.1. Steps needed to develop a strategy

1. One essential step is to develop a team consisting of members from different departments. A cross-

departments team is able to have an overview of all operations performed by the company. The team has to

collect, synthetize and share the gathered data with the other departments. In this way the coordinator of the

team receives balanced information and focuses on multiple sides of the problem.

2. Even though seen as a less professional tactic, comparing with best-in-class companies can prove to be

fruitful to the well-being of the company. Having a comparison term could be easier to identify the strengths

and weaknesses of the company, but it can also function as a barometer as for where is the social media

campaign aiming to.

3. Focus on few objectives at a time - like this a company can be in control of the situation and analyze better

the main drawbacks or advantages of a chosen tactic/way of acting and reacting on the market. The more

tactics a company uses, the more difficult it gets when it comes to analyze and take decisions accordingly7.

4. Choosing the right tools and platforms might prove difficult to do, due to the fact that there is a wide range

of tools available on the market that can perform multiple functions, such as measuring the profit of the

company or helping the B2B marketer to target better and with more efficiency the appropriate future

customer8. In the following we will present some of the main tools existing on the market and the advantages

and disadvantages that it brings along to the social media campaign.

Social Media Tools

Social Media Tools

Type Name Features Strengths&Weaknesses

Monitoring

Hootsuit

Social media management tool

Covers multiple social networks

Weekly analytics reports

Free social media tool

Excellent team management facility

CoTweet Monitor keywords and trends

Assign updates to colleagues

Easy follow-up

Easy way to manage multiple accounts

Allow multiple users on a single account

Free service

Enterprise option 1,500$ a month

Radian 6 Social media9

Easy Monitoring for: Specific for B2B marketers

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Twitter,

Forums

Online communities Find people in need of a solution

Real-time updates pushed to your

dashboard

Follow-up/reach out to a customer

Virality and

Search

Topsy10

Virality tool,

Tracking mechanism

Social listening post

Find a tweet the competitor sent

Number of retweets

Improved metrics

Free

All In One SEO Pack

Specify page title, description, and keywords

for each post

Easy search

Comprehensive Tool

Swix

Unified scoreboard of all key metrics

Twitter

Tweetdeck

Updating Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn

simultaneously

Tweetie11

Intuitive for managing Twitter

Mac-only app

Table 1. Sources: www.mashable.com, www.socialmediatory.com, www.convinceandconvert.com

5. Defining the key measures that will help the company to evaluate how effective was the social media

strategy engaged is one other step mandatory in implementing the strategy. Anything that is connected to an

objective can be measured. In order to measure accurately, the marketers need access to as much data as

possible. Ensuring that the corporate website is set up with analytic software like Google Analytics or Clicky,

using URL shortening services, such as Bit.ly could prove beneficial to track clicks on links shared on social

platforms. The obtained data must be included in taking future decisions on key tactics.

6. Gaining real-time insight into areas such as views and sentiment analysis is possible by listening and

engaging the audience. Social media listening or social media monitoring implies identifying and assessing

what is being said on social networks about the company12

.

7. The company has gained insights into what the customer want by applying the previous step of social

media monitoring. This can help them to develop new ways of attracting new customers and develop the

relationship with the existing ones. This has to be a continuous flexible process, as the wishes, views and

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trends existing on the market change rapidly.

3.2. Defining the Main Objectives

As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, a B2B relationship is different from a B2C one and by taking in

consideration each of its characteristics, the main objectives of a social media community building can be

identified.

Firstly, increasing brand awareness and engagement in company’s products and events is one of the main

purposes of social media. Secondly, acquiring a long-term relationship based on trust with the existing and

potential customer should be the aim of any social media project. Social media communities should build a

good reputation for the company and its products. Social media networking can be a good way to acquire

supporters and advocates that increase credibility and thus trust among partners and possible future

customers.

Engaging the B2B client in the innovation process could lead to a better performance of the company’s

businesses. Marketers could ask for opinions on products, track the customer and require feedback not only

on the bought good, but as well on the experience that he had while collaborating with the company.

3.3. Choosing between Open or Closed Community

3.3.1. Defining the open and closed communities

Social media marketers define closed communities as communities that offer limited access to the outsiders to

the community content and information, whereas open communities are described as communities that offer

full access to all visitors. There is no specific data whether open and closed communities are more likely to

occur in one type of industry rather than the other. However, open and closed communities vary from the point

of view of volume of activity. Open communities have ten times more contributions than the closed ones and

thirty times more page views. One important benefit that a B2B company can have from having an open

community is the rapid growth rate. In general, B2B communities are rather small in comparison to other

communities present on the web.

3.3.2. Advantages and disadvantages of open and closed communities

Both categories of communities provide advantages and disadvantages to the business.

Firstly, an open community provides a rapid growth, as opposed to the closed one. Allowing access to all

visitors ensures a community that will thrive, while limiting access can reduce even more the circle of

company’s public. By having a big community, the access to information about the market demands is also

augmented, as well the access to greater user-generated content. Interconnecting with possible partners

upwards and downwards the supply chain is another advantage of open communities. Open communities give

the benefit of crowdsourcing. Comments, discussions, the free expression of thoughts and opinions should be

encouraged, as they are a valuable source for the company. Departing from that, new products and services can

be developed, adding value along the supply chain13

.

On the other hand, allowing unrestricted access to visitors has drawbacks, like difficulty in controlling the

quality of the content. Guests can post various comments, that can be either unrelated to the topics discussed

on the page, or negative in regard to the company or the product. Even though criticism should be encouraged,

as it is a leading path to product improvement, it can also have downside effects, like negative word-of-mouth.

Moreover, the benefit of search engine optimization (SEO) can be easily reduced by allowing irrelevant

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comments and discussions. A free access can jeopardize the quality of the page entirely, as some of the visitors

can post not only comments, but as well videos or photos that can compromise the content and thus, the efforts

of the social media marketing team14

.

With a closed community the above problem is solved, because the content is easily manageable. What is

more, by having a closed community is easy to penalize unwanted behavior. This can lead to high quality

content and therefore to close and meaningful communication between members. The competitors become

unaware of visitors’ opinions.

However, having a closed community can prove difficult to achieve recognition and popularity. The

propagation of positive word-of-mouth is slowed down. Not having access to enough information on the

market needs and trends can endanger the quality of the business and how it responds to the consumers’

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.

In conclusion, a company wishing to implement a social media project needs to weigh the advantages and

disadvantages of both communities and choose the one that proves to be the most beneficial for its activity.

3.4. Evaluating and measuring social media benefits

Often the evaluation and measurement might be quite challenging, especially in the case of applying

novel technologies which are not thoroughly understood yet, or aiming to facilitate complex processes

such as innovation and product development, which in addition to their complexity involve long time

periods between the investment decision and its actual impacts. The above types of challenges cannot,

still, justify not evaluating or measuring the impacts of social media efforts. Sometimes the task might,

however, require even novel approaches and ways to measure and evaluate the impacts, as seems to be

the way with social media. Evaluation of social media benefits can be done at different levels: process,

output and outcome. Process measures evaluate the effectiveness of the transfer of inputs to outputs, e.g.

% products developed on time and turn-around time for support requests . Outputs are the results or

deliverables of the process, for example number of new members that have joined a LinkedIn Group can

be an output of social marketing process. Outcomes can be divided into financial outcomes and non-

financial outcomes. Financial outcomes are ultimately either increased revenue or cost reductions, that

can be measured for example by revenue premium of brand equity, increases in the sales value,

decreases in the technology costs, savings in the costs of customer support services, cost reduction from

reduced input from employees, decreased cost impression by leveraging social media channels. Non-

financial outcomes are everything else, for example three times increase in brand mentions, 37 %

increase in positive sentiment, more than 50 % customers interacting with each other. Even though the

traditional ROI- type of measures are strived for, e.g. traditional marketing metrics with narrowly

defined ROI tend to lead to social media campaigns that maximize short-term benefits for the brand

without worrying too much about customer motivations and the long term. Regarding innovation,

perhaps due to the complexity of the issue, as well as the fragmented and various approaches proposed,

many organizations tend to focus only on the measurement of innovation inputs and outputs in terms of

spend, speed to market and numbers of new products, and ignore the processes in between. In addition,

Adams et al. [1] make a point that there is an over-reliance on financial measures rather than process

measures, a similar reliance on for instance knowledge such as patents to the exclusion of more

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intangible measures such as tacit knowledge, and furthermore, an over-reliance on quantitative or

dichotomous yes/no measures instead of measuring the quality of actions and results. Concerning

marketing, in a similar fashion, non-financial measures are increasingly seen as needed and many

authors have criticized the mere use of financial indicators in determining marketing performance.

Nonfinancial measures such as customer satisfaction and customer loyalty have attracted wide attention.

General challenges in evaluating and measuring social media benefits

A fundamental challenge for companies using or planning to use social media is that although they

recognize the need to be active in social media, they do not truly understand how to do it

effectively, what performance indicators they should be measuring, and how they should measure

them. A related challenge is that managers may be “naïvely optimistic” about social media, and

without proper means to adjust their beliefs, they may either give up on their social media efforts or

continue efforts that involve random adjustments without real-life data support.

One generic challenge is that the social media environment is highly dynamic and rapidly evolving,

which may be difficult for managers to realize. Due to the novelty of social media concepts and

approaches, and also the unpredictability of e.g. engaging customers in a company’s social media

efforts, suitable measures can enable managers to adjust their beliefs, actions and strategies, and thus

learn efficiently about social media possibilities and benefits.

Another important challenge concerning the evaluation and measuring is that social media is still

new to the business world, and companies have to experiment with which approaches work and

which do not. Thus, when experimenting, it might be difficult to evaluate what really works, what

should be expected as a result, and what is a good or sufficient result.

Evaluating and measuring social media benefits is a very topical issue in general social media

research, and it has been a subject of many studies in recent years . However, there are only few

studies that discuss the various different benefits and the evaluation of benefits of social media from

the perspective of B2B companies. According to a study of Finnish Business and Policy Forum

EVA B2B companies typically see social media as something belonging consumer business, and

that it has little or nothing to offer in improving the effectiveness of business

between business companies. This highlights the importance of evaluating and measuring the

benefits that specifically B2B companies can gain from social media.

The aim of this research is to explore social media and its benefits especially from B2B innovation

and related customer interface perspective, and to create a more comprehensive picture of the

possibilities of social media for the B2B sector. We also examine the challenges of evaluating social

media benefits in this context. In this way, we hope to enable managers to better understand the

broad possibilities of social media in B2B context, to set realistic

objectives and to create related measures for social media, and to hopefully help companies to adopt

social media in a faster and more planned manner.

4. Comparing Social Media Strategies at BASF Company and DuPont Company.

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Case Study

Even though reluctant at the beginning, B2B companies have understood the acute need to add

social media at their marketing strategy, fearing that their brand credibility would suffer or that they

would not gain anything through implementing such projects. The situation has reversed during the

past years to such extent that, in 2013, almost 50% of B2B companies attracted at least one customer

via Facebook and nearly 43% gained a new one via LinkedIn.

(http://www.fathomdelivers.com/blog/b2b-tech/best-practices-b2b-social-media-success/)

The next chapter will examine two case studies in which social networking platforms were used to

increase brand awareness and spread of positive word-of-mouth by two major players in the

chemical industry, BASF and DuPont.

The focus will be on the use of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and other less prominent social

networking platforms.

Following a short presentation of both companies, a detailed insight on social media platforms

employed by them will be offered. Moreover, statistical data about companies’ main networking

platforms will be presented and analyzed.

As presented previously in Chapter 2 “Evaluating Social Media Benefits” financial outcomes can be

difficult to assess, as both detailed and large amount of data is necessary. On the other hand, non-

financial measures are increasingly perceived as being needed, due to the fact that both customer

customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as brand awareness are difficult to be measured with

financial indicators. Given the fact that social media is primarily a promoter of brand awareness and

rapid spread of word-of-mouth, the analysis of the statistical data will focus mainly on non-financial

measures.

4.1. BASF COMPANY

4.1.1. Company presentation

BASF SE is the largest chemical company in the world and is headquartered in Ludwigshafen,

Germany. BASF originally stood for Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik (English: Baden Aniline and

Soda Factory). Today, the four letters are a registered trademark and the company is listed on the

Frankfurt Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and Zurich Stock Exchange. The company

delisted its ADR from the New York Stock Exchange in September 2007.

The BASF Group comprises subsidiaries and joint ventures in more than 80 countries and operates

six integrated production sites and 390 other production sites in Europe, Asia, Australia, Americas

and Africa. Its headquarters is located in Ludwigshafen am Rhein (Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany).

BASF has customers in over 200 countries and supplies products to a wide variety of industries.

Despite its size and global presence BASF has received relatively little public attention since

abandoning its consumer product lines in the 1990s.

At the end of 2013, the company employed more than 112,000 people, with over 52,500 in Germany

alone. In 2013, BASF posted sales of €73.97 billion and income from operations before special

items of about €7.2 billion. The company is currently expanding its international activities with a

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particular focus on Asia. Between 1990 and 2005, the company invested €5.6 billion in Asia, for

example in sites near Nanjing and Shanghai, China and Mangalore in India.

Segments:

Chemicals

Performance Products

Functional Materials &Solutions

Agricultural Solutions

Oil & Gas

Regions:

Europe

North America

Asia Pacific

South America, Africa, Middle East

4.1.2 BASF & Social Media

External Communication

BASF is present in several social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+,

Youtube, Slideshare, Flickr and StockTwits.

Their main goal is to create value through connectedness and their mission is to do create an online

business network for employees worldwide.

BASF reaches on Facebook over 159,423 fans and is continuously increasing. BASF is frequently

posting about their activities and news like the opening of a new corporate headquarters, Annual

General Meeting etc. Besides this they reply to fans comments and answers. 16

The questions from

other users are always answered by BASF and the user’s feedback is positive. The average response

time needed by BASF to answer user’s questions is 3.5 hours. In June 2013 they Facebook Official

Page had 120 000 likes with 1 200 000 monthly reached users, the major group being between 18-

35 year old. The engagement rate is relatively high – 77% of all posts on BASF Corporate page are

made by other users and they show a positive attitude towards BASF. Facebook is also used for

business conversations like requests for products, sending product informations or asking for

The regional pages had 30 000 users engage with the page per month. The content is more about

science, products & solutions, corporate news and the people behind BASF.

BASF on Twitter reached 21419 followers and 2180 tweets in three years since it is present. The

Corporate Blogs & Widgets

16

postings from Twitter are similar with the ones from Facebook.

BASF on YouTube has 3339 subscribers with total views of 2390161 and 532 videos where they

post promotional videos, campaigns and TV appearances. Their strategy on Youtube is to improve

the branding with a better user orientation focusing on innovations and industry approach.

On Slideshare enjoys 103 shares and 331 followers and on Google+ has 879,705 views and 2,424

followers.

Social Media Statistics

Facebook

Country Local Fans % of Fan Base

1 Brazil 26591 16.7 %

2 India 25040 15.7 %

3 Germany 20706 13.0 %

4 Turkey 12014 7.5 %

5 United States 10546 6.6 %

6 Malaysia 9671 6.1 %

7 Mexico 7295 4.6 %

8 South Korea 5426 3.4 %

9 Spain 5279 3.3 %

10 Belgium 2784 1.7 %

Table 2 BASF Distribution of Fans

Source: www.socialbakers.com, accessed on 25 April 2014

BASF is present in over 40 countries where the top 10 countries of fans distribution are in Brazil

with 26591 fans representing 16.7% of fan base, India with 25040 fans, Germany with 20706 fans

and last, Belgium with 2784 fans representing 1.7% of fan base.

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Table 3.BASF Fans

Source: www.socialbakers.com, accessed on 25 April 2014

Concerning the number of fans on Facebook, it can be seen an ascendant trend from November

(141 125 fans) to 159 487 fans in April. During the period of January – March the number of fans it

is in the phase of stability.

The fans growth is continuously increasing, by 20 fans per day to 7 093 fans by month.

BASF Fans growth

by day +29

by week +1 034

by month +7 093

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Twitter

Table 4. BASF Twitter Followers

Source: www.socialbakers.com, accessed on 25 April 2014

On Twitter it can be seen a rise of followers from 16 906 (Nov.) to 21 419 in April. During the

period of January – March it can be noticed a phase of growth from 18 512 followers in January to

19 384 followers in March.

Youtube

Table 5 BASF subscribers youtube

Source: www.socialbakers.com, accessed on 25 April 2014

The Youtube subscribers has increased from 2 251 subscribers in Nov. to 3 339 subscribers in Apr.

During the period of January – March it can be seen a stagnation.

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Table 6. BASF uploaded video views

Source: www.socialbakers.com, accessed on 25 April 2014

The uploaded videos views is fluctuating from 967 206 views (Nov.) to 2 390 161 views in Apr.

During January- March the number of views is stagnating and after it can be seen a rise.

Internal Communication

BASF started work on a corporate online business platform as early as 2008. It was opened up to all

employees in 2010. It now has more than 38,000 users, 4,200 communities and 1,900 blogs. The

project has brought change to this global giant with more than 110, 000 employees in more than 80

countries, not only in terms of technology but also of openness of communication and ways of

working.

The concept of social networking is well aligned with the company’s strategy and its impact is

already being felt throughout the organisation. “People use less email and more blogs to discuss

projects,” says Marlene Wolf, Enterprise Community Manager. “If you have a team with members

based in Hong-Kong, Sao Paolo and Antwerp, the time difference makes it difficult for them to

discuss issues via email. But with a blog, they can do a post on the status of a project at the end of

Online Business Network connect.BASF Intranet

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the day once they have finished their work. When their colleagues in the next time zone wake up,

they can read it, get up to speed and do what needs to be done”.

Their internal communication strategy is to move from hierarchies and teams to a fully connected

organization and workspace. Their three objectives are: Active use (networking, knowledge

sharing, collaboration), One Network (move stand-alone solutions to one integrated platform),

Develop best practices (increase in efficiency, added value)

In order to create a successful platform they followed few steps. In the following we will describe

the steps which had a high impact on the platform:

Successful steps in developing the platform

1. Involving all stakeholders:

The basic idea of connect.BASF was to identify expert communities in the company via an IT

platform and support them in their work. A member of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF

agreed very early on to be project sponsor.

They have created an interdisciplinary project team for concept development, with an internal

marketing and sales initiative taking the control. Communication and innovation management were

represented on the team too, joined by IT disciplines, HR, research and innovation communication.

The team conducted a stakeholder analysis looking for the involvement of all key stakeholder

groups at an early stage.

The owners of isolated applications were invited to contribute to the concept for the new network as

members of an extended team. This had two advantages: Firstly, they learned a lot from their

experience and secondly they had the opportunity to input their requirements for the new platform

right from the beginning and as a result were more inclined to move from their isolated application

to the corporate network.17

2. Choosing the right IT platform

A valuable feedback they got from expert communities is that their future platform should offer

enhanced options for online collaboration. BASF was able to meet this requirement using a new

version of the software IBM Connections.

The broad spectrum of performance features is one of the secrets behind connect.BASF’s success

today:

Users get started via a profile, a virtual business card showing their working area, experience and

expertise.

Users can network with colleagues via the contacts in their profile – similar to Facebook friends,

LinkedIn or XING contacts.

Blogs are a key communication tool in connect.BASF. Experts use blogs to pass on knowledge,

managers use them to talk to employees, and project teams use them as newsletters.

Employees use discussion forums for mutual support, for instance when seeking solutions to

problems. One big advantage is that all the useful responses are on record here and can be retrieved

by other users.

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Anyone who finds an internet or intranet website that might interest colleagues can bookmark it.

connect.BASF has a feature allowing files to be shared with others and released for editing – an

alternative to closed team rooms or email exchanges.

Wikis are ideal for assembling collective knowledge, thereby producing online encyclopedias on all

sorts of specialist subjects. Project teams also use wikis to document their work.

3. Creating online and offline support

For BASF employees using the internal platform is voluntary. They rely on attention attraction by

sharing interesting content and employees who are role models. The member of the Board of

Executive Directors responsible at the time for North America not only personally invited all

employees in his region to use connect.BASF but switched his own video blog from the intranet to

connect.BASF. His move also helped position connect.BASF as a platform for communicating with

staff.

They have offered web-based training in a variety of languages during the introductory phase.

Employees had the chance to get to know connect.BASF offline as well. Company is still hosting

learning events in Ludwigshafen, which are booked out for months in advance.

Types of Communities The platform of connect.BASF has four communities within different focus and strategy.

The first community is called Experts & Professions and its main focus is on knowledge sharing.

Their goals are problem solving and recognition as expert.

The second community is called Projects & Teams with focus on collaboration. The main goals are

business objectives and process integration.

The third community is Personal Networks with main focus on networking and building trust among

employees.18

The last community is Initiatives & Organizational unit focusing on internal communication,

feedback and transparency.

In the graphic below we can see a positive growth of internal communities. From beginning of May

2010 until April 2013 the use of communities has rised from 2500 users in 2011 to more than 3500

in 2013.

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Table 7 Growth of internal communities

Source: www.slideshare.com, accessed on 15 April 2014

Benefits of the platform Connecting the Enterprise: “Before, we had separate solutions like team rooms, shared drives and

intranets,” points out Dr. CheeChin Liew, Enterprise Community Manager. With connect.BASF

employees can also involve the stakeholders who are likely to benefit from that project. They can

receive regular updates and feedback before a project is completed. 19

Building Two-way Trust

By using the platform their wish was to build a relationship based on trust. At the beginning the

platform had a functionality that would have allowed people on the platform to add a collegue

without their permission. Another functionality would have enrolled someone into a community

without their agreement. This issue has been discussed with The Works Councils and they have

modified the functionality. Employees first need to accept the invitation to a community. Openness

and cooperation with the Works Councils helped BASF to solve an issue before it materialized.

The Issue of Language

Although the company is headquartered in Germany, connect.BASF was launched first outside

Europe. The first launch was in North America followed by South America and Asia. Europe and

Germany came last. This approach not only helped to position the platform as a global project

coming from headquarters but it also helped to prevent long discussions about the choice of

language: “Because we launched first in other parts of the world, we did not have to have to

question the fact that most of the people were using English“ says Liew.

4.2. DuPont

4.2.1 Company presentation

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company or DuPont is an American chemical company, founded in

July 1802 as a gunpowder mill. In 2012, the company was ranked as being the world’s 3rd

company of its

profile after market capitalization and 9th

after revenue.

The company is known for developing Freon for refrigerators and a series of polymers, such as: nylon, Teflon or

Lycra.

DuPont is a global company, present in 90 countries and employs 58,000 people on more than 210 sites.

Describing itself as a market-driven innovative company that introduces thousands of new products and patent

applications every year, it serves diverse markets: agriculture, nutrition, electronics and communications, safety

and protection, home and construction, transportation and apparel. DuPont’s thirteen businesses are aligned to

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increase speed and effectiveness in meeting customer needs. The company has over 8,500 scientists and engineers

working at over 75 R&D centers located all over the world, namely in China, Japan, Taiwan, India, Germany, and

Switzerland. The average R&D investment reaches $1.3 billion annually in a diverse range of technologies for

many markets including agriculture, genetic traits, biofuels, automotive, construction, electronics, chemicals, and

industrial materials. Safety was one of the main focus points of the company. DuPont was also one of the first

companies to publicly establish environmental goals 20 years ago.

The company enjoys a very favorable public image, as well as numerous supporters worldwide. Thus, throughout

history the company received many awards, of which the most noticeable were Fortune Magazine 50 Most

Admired Companies in 2012, Thomson Reuters 100 Most Innovative Companies in 2011, Corporate

Responsibility Magazine Top 100 Best Corporate Citizens in 2012, The Scientist Best Place to Work in 2011,

Expansion Magazine Top 10 Super Companies in 2011.

Segments:

Electronic and Communication Technologies

Performance Materials

Coatings and Color Technologies

Safety and Protection

Agriculture and Nutrition

Regions

North America

Latin America

Europe and the Middle East

Africa

Asia Pacific

DuPont B-to-B Social Media Marketing Strategy

In an interview, the social media responsible indicates the main aspects of social media at DuPont that led to

developing an online engaged community.

The company started working with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, which is a trade association for

word-of-mouth marketing. The social media responsible from DuPont felt that social media is a heavy promoter of

word-of-mouth. More than that, WOMMA developed among the firsts ethical guidelines for word-of-mouth and

social media marketing.

The main aspect of participating in a social media tactic like blogs, Facebook or Twitter is to keep providing

ongoing, up-to-date content. Because of this reason, resources for providing this appealing content can be scarce.

If the resources are not to be found inside of the company, an external agency has to be hired. The content is

created in the marketing communications function and is usually owned by the business. Furthermore, for any

social media project the company is aligned with legal, due to the fact that marketers can be held accountable for

the content.

Development of Social Media Projects at DuPont

DuPont is very active in the field of social media activities for B2B. Since 2009 the company has increased the

24

social media marketing activity by implementing more than 40 projects across 7 from the 12 global business units.

Moreover, 15 listening and monitoring projects have been launched. Initially the company has estimated a budget

between 10,000$ and 250,000$. Senior management has created corporate governance measures for social media

as well as a Social Media Center of Excellence for the global marketing function.

From the beginning on, DuPont states that B-to-B clients are just as active as B-to-C ones and therefore,

recognizes the importance of this category of customers of making themselves heard.

The main objective of social media is to increase brand awareness and engagement on company’s products and

events, as well as to reach to the potential customers. By actively listening to the company’s public the company

could also profit from crowdsourcing.

For each project, the marketers set objectives, such as identifying the right social media channels, gather customer

insights, employ social media to demonstrate DuPont product’s usability and performance. They would address

the product to social communities adapted to the type of product.

In order to assess the performance of the implemented project, the marketers would measure the increase of

share-of-voice in social media channels and the increase of net positive sentiment of DuPont mentions.

Developing the social media community at DuPont follows a strategic plan that includes among others a listening

strategy, meant to provide insights into brands, products and markets, as well as creating social media pilots that

support social media objectives and address marketing challenges.

According to the company’s project, the listening strategy is similar with having a “never-ending on-line focus

group”. By listening marketers can acquire insights about markets, customers and products. They can also

understand better the point of view and of existing customers or of prospective ones on products. Additionally to

this, many customers or prospects express their wishes on social platforms or blogs. By gathering, analyzing and

synthetizing the information, DuPont can add value to the conversations and get value from the crowdsourcing.

The company’s specialists don’t want to focus only on gathering just raw information by using free or paid tools,

but they want to get the insights on different matters.

According to social media marketing plan the pilots have to fulfill certain criteria, such as: addressing marketing

challenges, leveraging listening insights, considering resource requirements, enhancing marketing activities. A

point has been made in the marketing plan from the fact that the marketers should not focus exclusively on

running high-profile sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, by neglecting lower visibly channels20

.

DuPont launched in 2007 a campaign meant to increase share of voice for the company on the Internet and to

increase awareness about DuPont brand and activities among a younger audience, that was supposedly mainly

active online. The main objectives were to increase awareness for DuPont science, increase positive sentiment for

the company, create stories that would be worthy of positive word-of-mouth. They launched five videos on eight

web blogs, that were chosen based on their capability to target the desired audience and that were known for

encouraging word of mouth. The videos featured some of the most spectacular product test and demonstration

footages. According to specialists, the company succeeded to simplify the appearance of their product to match

the targeted audience, build a community by using social media channels even for niche products that in general

would not attract a lot of viewers and proved that a B2B product can attract public if it’s presented as a B2C one,

that is in a creative way, that focuses on being spectacular rather than being functional.

The success of the campaign was rewarded and “The DuPont Science Stories” campaign was one of three finalists

for the Online Media Marketing and Advertising Best Campaign in Social Media Award 2007.

Another prove that the campaign was successful is the result of a survey of video viewers. 93% of the viewers

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indicated that they learned something from the videos.

Finally the program was lunched on multiple blogs and attracted 6,000 visits to the DuPont site and 50,000 video

streams. On average, the visitor remained on the site for 8 minutes, which is a long time on a B2B company site.

This proved that the average viewer watched at least 3 videos21

.

One important feature of DuPont social media strategy is that it focuses on both internal and external

communities. The main objective is that customers are interacting in real time with employees and scientists on

networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, leading to collaborations between people on different continents and

working on the same issues22

.

DuPont Social Media Channels

DuPont is using its Facebook page to stay closer to their community, by posting photos and comments mainly

about company’s events and social activities. The page is being daily updated and abounds in content. The

company has 43,726 fans and 843 that talk about it.

Table 8 DuPont Facebook Fans

Source: www.socialbakers.com, accessed on 25 April 2014

As observed from the above chart (Fig. nr 8 )the number of fans is considerably growing. In a span of 6 months

the number of fans has grown from 36,777 to 43,758. The ascending trend can be seen as a result of the

company’s pursue of gaining as much visibility as possible on social media networks.

The wish to reach to new generations of workers and customers is observed in the growth rate of fans (Fig.nr.9).

With 59 fans gained per day, the company is one of the best of its profile in increasing the brand awareness in the

Social Media Channels

26

virtual communities.

Table 9 DuPont Fans Growth Rate

Source: www.socialbakers.com, accessed on 25 April 2014

Table 10 DuPont Distribution of Fans

Source: www.socialbakers.com, accessed on 25 April 2014

28.5% of the Facebook fans are from United States, the company’s country of origin. On second place is Mexico

with 13.4%, followed by India, 12.4%, and Brazil with 11.7%.

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Table 11 DuPont News Twitter Followers

Source: www.socialbakers.com, accessed on 25 April 2014

Regarding the number of followers DuPont registers every day an increased number of users, from 23,338 to

26,444 followers.

On YouTube, DuPont has 1.938 subscribers on its official channel and is connected with many other company

channels, such as DuPont regional YouTube channels, DuPontSustainableSol, DuPont Refrigerants, DuPont

Nutrition and Health. However, the number of subscribers on adjacent channels remains low. The company posts

mainly videos related to its products and technologies used. The videos that promote the environmental friendly

and sustainable businesses are among the most viewed, enjoying as well a high popularity, translated in the

number of likes. Videos like “DuPont Tyvek reduces food waste during transport” or “Enabling Hehicle Weight

Reduction” attracted the most views.

4.3 Comparison DuPont vs. BASF

Like any other company using social media tools, DuPont and BASF are similar from the point of view of

objectives set for their social communities’ plans. Increasing brand awareness, increasing share-of-voice,

engaging in users in company’s activities, reaching towards a higher amount of crowdsourcing data are

only a few of the targets at which they are aiming.

By comparing the above mentioned companies in the case studies, there are few differences to be

observed.

First, DuPont started working with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, which is a trade

28

association for word-of-mouth social media marketing while BASF developed its own strategy of social

media. Besides this, the social media strategy was seen as an interdisciplinary project team. The team was

formed with an internal marketing and sales responsibles. Communication and innovation management

were also represented, joined later by IT and HR.

Second, the way the two companies are generating the content on social platforms has a different

approach. DuPont hires an external company in case they cannot create content within the marketing

communication function while BASF is relying on inside resources, as well as on user generated

content (77% posts on Corporate page are made by other users).

Third, DuPont has a clear listening strategy (monitoring platforms). They gather and synthetize the

customers comments while BASF is using more surveys.

Fourth, if we compare the objectives of the internal social media of the two companies it can be

noticed few differences. DuPont main objective is that employees are interacting in real time and to

lead collaborations between different continents while BASF main objective is to move from

hierarchies to a fully connected workspace. Additionally, they had a clear plan describing in details

the required steps in order to create the internal platform. Furthermore they created four different

communities within different focus and strategy.

Finally, the promotion of the platforms in the case of DuPont was different from the one of BASF.

DuPont launched five videos on eight web blogs. The videos featured some product test and

demonstration footages. Also, while launching a B2B product they have presented as a B2C one,

focusing on being spectacular.

BASF strategy of promotion was made internally with a global and regional approach. For

communicating the launch, the aims of platforms were translated into specific value propositions

and user benefits. The mail campaign was included in central information pages, teaser boxes and

print newsletters (global and regional).

5. Recommendations

Social Media has become an essential, official and recognized part of any business. Thus, social

media programs have to comply with regulatory and legal requirements. Leaving the company

vulnerable to audits, can be in the detriment of the business. Regulatory guidelines are a must for

any social media strategy and they should comply with the local and national regulations existing.

Tackling as soon as possible the social media challenges is the most relevant point in setting an

efficient social media campaign. Enacting security and privacy practices can reduce substantially the

risks of having public social media communities.

One important aspect of building a sustainable social media community (online) community that

would benefit the company in the long run refers to choosing the most appropriate social media

tools that can enhance the share of voice. Not all available tools on the market match the values and

policies of the company and implicitly, the content that the marketers want to share with the

community.

29

Honesty, fairness and transparency along with ethical values promoted by the company can reduce

considerably negative comments on social networking pages. Knowing how to handle negative

sentiment coming from the users adds value to company’s image.

Social Media has become an essential, official and recognized part of any business.

The growth of social media, from blogs, Facebook, Twitter to LinkedIn or YouTube, offers

companies the opportunity to join a conversation with millions of customers around the world.

Nowadays many companies still say that social media is an experiment as they are seeking to

understand how to make the best use of different channels, test their effectiveness and integrate

social media into their strategy.

Thus, social media programs have to comply with regulatory and legal requirements. Leaving the

company vulnerable to audits, can be in the detriment of the business. Regulatory guidelines or a

Social Media Policy are a must for any social media strategy and they should comply with the local

and national regulations existing. It should also include recommendations and best practices for

using the platforms in order to avoid personal and professional risks.

Tackling as soon as possible the social media challenges is the most relevant point in setting an

efficient social media campaign. Enacting security and privacy practices can reduce substantially the

risks of having public social media communities.

Another recommendation for companies would be to create internal trainings, preferably in several

languages.

In order to have active users using both external and internal platforms companies shall promote the

advantages of using them. A regular evaluation of the degree of utilization and regular user surveys

should increase the satisfaction of employees.

Being part of these platforms, the company has access to a huge amount of information that is

extremely valuable in developing relationships with customers, developing new products and

monitoring their competition.

For instance, 33% of Twitter users share opinions about companies or products at least once per

week. In order to understand how the social media efforts of the companies are perceived it should

clearly understand who is talking about them on these channels and what they are saying. Therefore

companies must put in place tools (quantitative or qualitative) for measuring its effectiveness,

analyzing and interpreting the results of intereactions between brand and consumers across digital

channels.

One important aspect of building a sustainable social media community (online) community that

would benefit the company in the long run refers to choosing the most appropriate social media

tools that can enhance the share of voice. Not all available tools on the market match the values and

policies of the company and implicitly, the content that the marketers want to share with the

community.

Honesty, fairness and transparency along with ethical values promoted by the company can reduce

considerably negative comments on social networking pages. Knowing how to handle negative

sentiment coming from the users adds value to company’s image.

Social media is fast becoming a strong force in organizations around the world, allowing them to

understand consumers’ behavior as never before.

As social media is creating new opportunities it also requests a deep thinking about marketing and

30

the measures of success.

The companies who are most efficient in social media and not only those who experiment the

channels but are also creating mechanisms to measure the impact on their business.

6. Conclusions For the past years, social media has become an integer part of the marketing mix, imposing to

marketers worldwide a new way of addressing themselves to customers’ needs and of approaching

the new challenges that came along with the new market trends. Price, placing, promotion and even

the product itself are being constantly reevaluated and redefined, not only by the producers but also

by the consumers. Social media is a tool that helps consumers and companies to reach one another

and understand each other better. Those united by the same point of interest and why not by the

same opinions form eventually a community. Thus, from this point of view social media is

considered a promoter of a new type of community, social media community. On social platforms

interconnected with each other companies and consumers engage in conversations, having as

ultimate purpose a quality improvement for the company’s offerings, and implicitly an improvement

of day-to-day life. Even though, at the beginning, skeptical at social media, B2B companies are

slowly starting building e-communities in order to increase share-of-voice, brand awareness, spread

of positive word-of-mouth, having as ultimate purpose to improve the public image of the company.

By producing specific products that are destined for few markets, targeting the potential customer

might prove difficult. Encountering more difficulties in implementing a social media community

project than a B2C company, a B2B company has to adapt the content of its campaigns to

community’s users. That being said, the companies engaging in this types of activities face multiple

challenges. In order to tackle these challenges, they have to adapt the material for social networking

in order to reach potential and profitable B2B consumers, as well as to build and preserve an ethical

public image in front of end consumers.

After defining social media and presenting main aspects that have to be taken in consideration when

building a social media plan, social media strategies at two companies, BASF and DuPont, are being

analyzed. Both companies have developed throughout the time sustainable social media

communities, and the numerous views as well as, the favorable image that end customers and

business partners have for the companies are the best indicators that the strategies applied are

effective in improving their brand awareness and in increasing the share-of-voice online.

Understanding that building just an external community would not be sustainable in time, DuPont

and BASF did implement as well internal communities. Like this, insiders are easily interconnected

between each other and connected with the large public. As opposed to B2C, B2B activities revolve

around product expertise and difficulty in use. Therefore, a well-built knowledge about the product

is essential to demonstrate its abilities and performance. Building an internal e-community is a key

to communicate to the external e-community about the company’s products and services.

In conclusion, having both internal and external communities can prove fruitful in developing a

sustainable and benefic e-community for B2B companies.

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7.Literature

Books

1. Linthicum D., B2B Application Integration: E-business – enable your enterprise;

Boston Addison-Wesley; 2001

2. Romdane N., Braun W., Internet Marketing 2013, Paris Enlebi, 2013

3. Gummesson E., Total relationship marketing, Ed. 3rd, Butterworth – Heinemann, 2008

4. Porter, E. Michael Competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining Superior Performance,

Free Press, 1985

5. Scott D., The new rules of lead generation: proven strategies to maximize marketing ROI,

New York, AMACOM, 2013

6. Walker, C. Orville, Mullins, W. John, Marketing Strategy – A Decision Focused Approach, 6th

Edition McGraw-Hill

Articles from Journals

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Interface in Innovation, available on: www.sciencedirect.com

2. Bengs A., Wiklund-Engblom A., How do B2B Companies Motivate Participation in Online

Innovation?, available on: www.sciencedirect.com

3. Jussila J., J., Leino M, Learning from and with customers with social media: a model for

social customer learning, available on: www.sciencedirect.com

Websites

1. http://de.slideshare.net/EdenSpodek/mesh-conference-2010b2bcommunitybuilding-

4166387, accessed on March 5, 2014

2. B2B Community Building: You’re Doing It Wrong,

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